


Inside/Out

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-11
Updated: 2008-04-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 01:03:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12070563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: Brian and Justin watch "Gay As Blazes," a ficlet.





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

**PART ONE**

  
  
The GLBT Center in Pittsburgh hired me to entertain at a gala they were giving to wind up what had been, Philip gave me to understand, a wildly successful fund-raising campaign. I get a shit load of requests to sing at these events, and when I can, I do. As it happened, I was appearing in Cleveland the night before, and I had a free night before moving on to Philadelphia for two shows.   
  
Philip’s nervousness came through the phone clearly. “Can I ask you an even bigger favor? And feel free to say No, but it would really mean a lot to me and to the Center….”  
  
You know that after a lead-in like that, you really don’t want to hear the rest. I sighed. “What?” I said, not very graciously. Jesus.   
  
“Altogether, after the expenses of the gala, we’ll have raised about $675,000.” Major money! “We’re honoring the woman who raised the most money…over $600,000.”  
  
“My God,” I said. “Some mover and shaker.”  
  
“She’s not. She’s a waitress at a local diner. The mover and shaker is actually a guy who owns an ad agency, Brian Kinney. He rounded up the donors, gave a chunk himself, and did it all in Debbie Novotny’s name.”  
  
“Nice guy.”  
  
“Different guy. Doesn’t want his name associated with this at all, wants Debbie to get all the glory. Doesn’t even want to come to the gala. If he knew that Debbie plans to thank him when she gets her award, he definitely wouldn’t be there. As it is, all I have is a tentative Yes from him…very tentative. If I could say he was sitting next to….”  
  
“Red Carter….”  
  
“At the banquet, I think that Yes would get a lot firmer. He’s a big fan, I know.”  
  
Great. Some old fag who’ll want to ask me all the usual questions, including the one I never answer: “Top or bottom?” Plus, of course, the opportunity to eat breast of chicken stuffed with wild rice…again. On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind meeting a guy who’ll raise over half a mil and not want the recognition. That’s unusual…very unusual.  
  
So that’s how I came to be in Pittsburgh last Thursday night, being shown to a round table set for eight. Two seats were empty. Next to the first empty seat was a middle-aged guy, a little younger than I expected Brian Kinney to be, dressed conservatively, a little stocky, some hair loss, but smiling broadly at me. Next to him was a blonde, thirty-ish woman, then a short, black-haired guy, a body builder-type, and a kid in his late teens. Then came the second empty seat, then the only guy at the table whom I’d fuck: chestnut hair, beautiful face, could stand to gain ten pounds, but radiating sex appeal. Philip was waving me into the seat between Brian and Mr. Hot.   
  
Philip said, “Red, this is Brian Kinney….” I looked at Brian, and he held out his hand to me.  
  
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Ted Schmidt. I work for Brian.”  
  
Jesus. I turned to Mr. Hot and held out my hand. “Red Carter,” I said.  
  
For a guy who is supposedly a big fan, Brian didn’t appear all that impressed. He rolled his lips inward, cocked an eyebrow, and said, “I understand you’re doing a set for us tonight. I’m looking forward to it.”  
  
I tried to wrench my eyes away from him as I sat down, but I knew I was staring. Then Philip started introducing the others at the table: Ted, Cynthia, Michael, Ben, and Hunter. The empty seat was for someone named Justin.   
  
“He’s running late,” Brian said to Philip’s unspoken question. “I’m not sure when he’ll be here.”   
  
I knew I was staring at Brian again, but I couldn’t help it. He noticed. He said, “You’re hotter in person than in the videos. “  
  
I noticed the black-haired guy…Michael?…roll his eyes, but I ignored him. Instead I asked the question that had been burning through my brain since I first laid eyes on Mr. H…Brian. “Do you watch 'Gay As Blazes?'"

Brian looked disconcerted and Michael snickered. “No,” Brian said.

"Have you seen any of the episodes? Are you at all familiar with the characters?”

Brian was regarding me with the kindly condescension usually reserved for the developmentally challenged. “I’ve seen little bits of two or three episodes when it first came on. Why?”

“You haven’t seen any of the episodes from the end of the second season or the third season?”

“No.” 

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “You know that all the queers on GAB are clean-cut and wholesome and into committed relationships?”

  
“Which is why I don’t watch.”  
  
“Well, at the end of last season, in the last two episodes, they introduced this new character. He’s some kind of high-powered lawyer, and he’s acting as the attorney for Dan in his separation from Ray. He also arranged Stu and Mark’s adoption of their little boy.”  
  
Brian was looking around the room for someone, presumably someone with a more interesting line of conversation. I was losing him. “Anyway,” I said, “this guy – the lawyer – is a complete slut, fucks everything with a dick.” Now Brian was looking at me. “And he looks like you. I mean, it’s an amazing resemblance.”  
  
Brian smiled, an act that made his beautiful face even more striking. “Did you just tell me I’m a slut?”  
  
Michael looked up the body builder and said, “It wouldn’t be the first time,” and they both grinned.  
  
I said, “No, no, no. I didn’t mean to imply that. This season – they’ve aired four episodes as of last Sunday - this character – his name is Gale – hooked up with a twink in the first episode, and the sex has gotten hot and heavy and pretty fucking explicit.”  
  
“So this guy who looks like me…this Gail…what the hell kind of name for a guy is Gail?”  
  
“G-a-l-e. The lawyer’s name is Gale Harold.”  
  
“Whatever. Anyway this guy…if he looks like me he’s hot….”  
  
“Sizzling,” I interjected.  
  
“This hot guy hooked up with a twink? Is the twink hot?”  
  
“Yeah. But not in the same way as Gale. The kid is more…um…I don’t know…almost radiant, while Gale is HOT.”  
  
“Of course,” Brian said.  
  
“The twink…he’s blond, blue-eyed, typical twink build…meets Gale when Gale comes out of a club, half-wasted, and Randy – that’s the kid’s name – is standing under a street light, looking to get laid….” I looked around the table and realized that everybody at the table was now listening intently. Brian had a very strange expression on his face.  
  
Suddenly his attention shifted, and he looked across the room. He raised one hand, and a slight blond man turned in our direction and started to weave his way through the tables toward us. As he drew closer, I sucked in my breath. Blue eyes to go with that blond hair, a better fashion-sense than the 17-year-old Randy Harrison had exhibited, but otherwise….  
  
I looked at Brian, and he said, “You’re right. The sex is fucking phenomenal.”  



	2. Part II

  
Author's notes: A second ficlet in the Inside/Out 'verse. Someday there may be more episodes, but right now this is it.   


* * *

**PART TWO**

“What the fuck are you watching?”

Justin didn’t look around. He remained slumped on the couch, his feet up on Brian’s oh-so-expensive coffee table. “What does it look like?”

“It looks like ‘Gay As Blazes.’”

“Un-huh.”

Brian turned toward the bedroom, taking off his jacket as he walked. “And may I ask why the fuck you’re watching that…that…?”

“Fantasy? Get changed and I’ll show you why.”

Brian snorted.

“O.K., get changed and get yourself a drink, and then I’ll show you.”

Half an hour later, Brian dropped down on the couch next to Justin, glass in hand. Justin had a plate balanced on the couch between them. He shot Brian a glance, spread tapenade on a cracker, and handed it to him.

“I’m doing a GAB marathon. I want to get caught up by Sunday night when episode 305 comes on. I’ve got two more episodes to go.”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah, I know. But, listen, I’m going back and show you the first episode of this season...Season 2.”

“I have a better idea….” And Brian snaked out his right arm in Justin’s direction.

“No, you don’t. And be careful or you’ll get the tapenade on the couch.”

“Why the hell isn’t the tapenade on the fucking coffee table?”

Justin mumbled something around the cracker in his mouth.

“What?”

Justin swallowed. “Inconvenient. It’s inconvenient to have to put your feet down every time you want another cracker. Anyway, watch this. This is the first episode with Gale and Randy. I’ll fast-forward through the parts they aren’t in, ‘cause I know you won’t be interested. However this episode is mostly about them anyway.”

Brian put his feet up next to Justin’s and sipped his drink. There was a club similar to Babylon, there were Gale’s three friends who bore an amazing resemblance to Emmett, Ted, and Mikey, and there was Gale getting his cock sucked in the backroom. This was, he thought, more interesting than any of the bits of “Gay As Blazes” he’d seen before.

Much more interesting, he thought, as Gale noticed the blond boy standing under the street light. He shot a look at Justin who said, “I told you it was interesting.”

Brian balanced his glass on the arm of the couch and spread tapenade on a cracker. He popped the cracker in his mouth whole and said, “Mmmph.” Justin didn’t ask him what he meant, but the corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

Brian swallowed and said, “Who the hell are the actors? The kid sure looks like you, but I’m hotter than that guy playing Gale.”

“They were both unknowns when they were hired. The actually-very-hot guy playing Gale is Graham Kelton. The kid is played by a Sean somebody; I forget his last name. I can look it up if you want me to, but he’s not nearly as purdy as me.”

“I’d fuck him.”

“Like that’s some big surprise. Besides, he’s too young for you. I read that he was 22 when they started filming…and you’re nearly….”

“Shut up. I want to watch the show.”

Justin smiled and ate another cracker.

Brian was just finishing his drink when Gale and Randy entered the loft, a loft that looked uncannily like the one they were sitting in. He watched attentively as Gale told Randy to shut the door, as Gale poured water over his head, and as Gale stripped off his 2xist thong. But when Gale said, ‘Are you coming or going? Or coming, and then going? Or coming and staying,’ Brian’s feet hit the floor and he sat up straight. “Pause that damn thing!”

Justin hit Pause, and Randy froze in the midst of taking off his flannel shirt. Brian said, “What the fuck is going on? I could understand when the scenes inside and outside of Babylon were pretty accurate, although I never got bored with having my dick sucked. I’ll bet half of gay Pittsburgh saw that pick-up and remembered it well enough to tell some scriptwriter about it. But the moment when I lost my mind and asked you if you were coming and staying…we were alone. There weren’t any fucking observers. So how the hell…?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, believe me, ‘cause it gets worse, much worse. Our first fuck comes later in this episode, and it’s scary-accurate. But I think I have a pretty good idea who’s providing the inside scoop. Let me ask you a couple of questions. First of all, what good friend moved to California a couple of years ago? What good friend then pretty much dropped out of sight? What good friend haven’t we heard a peep from in over a year?”

Brian’s mouth dropped open a little. “You mean….”

“Yeah. And you know what I’m going to do now? I’m tired of wondering. I’m going to make a call.” Justin pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and punched in ten numbers. Never taking his eyes off of Brian, he said, “Hi, Mrs. Chanders. It’s Justin, and I was just wondering….”


End file.
